Zinc oxide is regarded as a promising candidate for application in photoelectrochemical water oxidation due to its higher electron mobility. However, its instability under alkaline conditions limits its application in a practical setting. Herein, we demonstrate an easily achieved wet-chemical route to chemically stabilize ZnO nanowires (NWs) by protecting them with a thin layer Fe2 O3 shell. This shell, in which the thickness can be tuned by varying reaction times, forms an intact interface with ZnO NWs, thus protecting ZnO from corrosion in a basic solution. The reverse energetic heterojunction nanowires are subsequently activated by introducing an amorphous iron phosphate, which substantially suppressed surface recombination as a passivation layer and improved photoelectrochemical performance as a potential catalyst. Compared with pure ZnO NWs (0.4 mA cm-2 ), a maximal photocurrent of 1.0 mA cm-2 is achieved with ZnO/Fe2 O3 core-shell NWs and 2.3 mA cm-2 was achieved for the PH3 -treated NWs at 1.23 V versus RHE. The PH3 low-temperature treatment creates a dual function, passivation and catalyst layer (Fe2 PO5 ), examined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, TEM, photoelectrochemical characterization, and impedance measurements. Such a nano-composition design offers great promise to improve the overall performance of the photoanode material.
Keywords: charge separation; heterojunction; overlayer; photoelectrochemistry; surface state.
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